Process of welding rails or the like.



W. BREWITT.

PROCESS OF WELDING RAlLS OR THE LIKE. APPLICATION men NOV. 8. i913.

1,167,03, Patented Jan. 4. 1916.

Fig, 3.

- g ENT WALTER BREWI'IT, OF ESSEN-ON THE-RUHR, GERMANY, ASSIGNOR TO GOLDSCHMID-T THERMIT COMPANYiOF NEW ,YORK, N. Y., A CORPORATION OF NEW JERSEY.

rnocnss or WELDING RAILS on THE IZIKE.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Jan. 4, 1916.

Application filed November 8, 1913. Serial No. 799,892.

To all whom it may concern:

Beit known that I, WALTER BnEwrr'r, subject of the King of Prussia, and resident of Essen-on-the-Rul1r, in the Province of the Rhine, Germany, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in the Process of Welding Rails or the like, of which the following is an exact specification. v I

In the process of welding rails, which are laid in a paved roadsurface, a contraction of the track takes place in consequence of the upsetting of the railends resulting from the heating of the latter and owing to the shrinkage caused by the succeeding cooling of the joint. The tensions produced by this shrinkage are frequently the cause of rail breakages. There are already difl'erent processes carried out to avoid such an upsetting of the rail ends. One of them consists in filling up the joint with liquid iron resulting for instance from an alumi gz nothermic reaction. In another the rail ends are wldedby means of an electrical luminous arc. A third method consists in pressing a metal piece into the space between the rail-ends, during the welding operation in order to equalize by such an addition of material the contraction caused by the upsetting. Furthermore, attempts have been made to prevent the upsetting by force, by adjusting the space between the rails by means of a clamping apparatus or the like, so that the surfaces to be united did not come into contact with one another before the highest welding temperature was 0b tained, thereby keeping the pressure upon the surfaces'so low, that no upsetting and consequently no contraction took place. With all these. processes whether with or without upsetting, it was not possible to wholly remove the contraction, which was the consequence of the shrinkage causedby the cooling of the joint. Besides this disadvantage, another error was made in carrying out the last mentioned welding proc ess, as the welding surfaces or were not brought into contact before the highest necessary temperature was reached. Under such circumstances deposits of oxid were produced on the welding surfaces as soon as the heatmglbegzin. These oxids prevent a strong metallic union of the rad-ends. Corr sequentfy this process could not be carried out in practlce on a large scale. These disadvantages are avoided by a new process which allowed a free contraction of therails so that the formation of tensions by cooling was impossible. In carrying out this method the rails must be guided by force in a straight line and the surfaces must be previously faced to exact parallel ism, otherwise the rail-ends alter their elevation or their position in lateral direction and break. Wrong bends or misplacements -of their ends are produced, so that it is very difiicult to' exactly determine the true amount of the shrinkage. Only by the use of newly disclosed mechanisms was it possi- 'ble to avoid these disadvantages and to determine the correct amount of shrinkage of the rail-ends. This determination is taken into consideration in the present process of weldingrails which are tightly held in an unmovable position.

- According to the present process the space between the rail-ends is enlarged by forcing for instance a flat steel wedge from the side between the websof the rail-ends below the rail' heads in such a manner that the end surfaces are moved parallel in the direction of the longitudinal axis of the rails. By thus .Qorcing the wedge into the space betwe'e the rail-ends an elastic tension will bepi oduced in the-tightly-held rails. However, this tension does not go beyond the elasticlimit. The-parallel displacement .of the. sectional surfaces renders possible an exact parallel facing of these surfaces in the space produced by the aforesaid enlargement. This facing being finished the width of the space will be so adjusted by pressing the wedge into the space or by drawing it back that the width corresponds with the necessary amount ofupsetting or shrinkage.

This amount must be preliminarily determined by experiments, for instance by weldlng loose paratus. piece of After this adjustment. a suitable metal of good weldabihty is inserted into the space between the rail-heads The joint prepared in this manner'canafterward easily be welded-without the use of a special clamping device. for instance by the aluminotherinic proce in such a manner that foot and web are fused together by pouring aluminothermic iron around them whereas the heads are closely united by an upsettingproduced by the elastic jn s sure. As the space between the rail-ends was enlarged beforehand an amount depending upon the amount of upsetting and shrinkage. it follows that the joint after being cooled will be either withoutany tension or still be under a small pressure tension which however is an advantage with respect to the durability of the welded joint. 1f the end surfaces are moved in the above described manner, certain disadvantages may arise, which render a successful welding very diilicult. This is ciempliiied in the accompanying drawing, in which l igure 1 is a lllOl'l' or less diagrammatic side elevation, partly in section, illustrating the disadvantages of inserting a wedge bctween the rail ends from above when no holdingdevice is used on the rails; Figs. 2

and 3 are similar views showing the disadvantages of inserting the wedge between the rail ends from the bottom and side respectively, when no holding device is used on the rails; and Fig. l is an end elevation of a rail. end showing in transverse section, a holding device for overcoming the disadvantages illustrated in Figs. 1 to Referring to the drawing, it will be seen that if a wedge is driven between the railcauses the rails to move in a straight "line rails by means of a clamping 1p""fOi GXRIDPlQ in Fig. -lof'the drawing. it is when the Wedge is being forced bet 'ecn the rail ends. Such a device is shown by way composed of a frame a. inclosing the rail lfeet from below and aprojection Z) serving as support for the webs of the rail-ends. Opposite to this projection the frame a is provided with a guide 0 for the rail feet. Theseparts prevent the rail-ends from be ing turned or moved out of their ordinary horizontal position. Besides these parts the frame a carries the mechanism for moving the wedge (J. This wedge is connected with a screw c passing through anupper part of the frame a. By turning the screw in one or the other direction the wedge is either forced between. the end surfaces of the rails or removed therefrom. ln'order to render the forcing of the wedge (Z into the rail joint possible. the projection. Z) of the frame a is provided with a groove or a recess as shown in the drawing. If the wedge (Z is moved in the manner just described, the rail-ends can only move in a straight line in the frame a, so that they do not have the level of the tread, that is to say the exact parallelism of the rails is absolutely maintained. The frame (I, made of one piece in the example shown in the drawing, can also be f0rl( 7) must consequently be pressed from above toward the rail head and the rail foot.

Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what I claim is:

1. A process of welding rails or the like consisting in pressing the ends of unmovably held rails back for an amount corrc spending to their contraction after welding,

inserting a piece of metal into the space,-

allowing the rail-ends to return sullicicntly to grip said piece of metal owing to their elastic tension and then welding the rail ends together.

A process of welding rails or the like consisting in pressing 1e ends of unmovably held rails back f0 an amount corresponding to their contraction after welding by forcing a wedge into the space, applying suitable means for producing a straightdinc r'novement of the tread of the rails, inserting a. piece of metal above the wedge, allowing the rail-ends to return sutliciently to grip Said. piece of metal owing to their elastic piece of metal inserted between the rail ends, tension by loosening the wedge and then and then welding said piece of metal ,to- 10 W6di$fi the rail-em? to (either. 1 t1; gether with the rail ends.

r e rocesso we 1n rzus or e A 5 like, consis ting in pressing t e ends of the ALTER BREWITT' rails back for an amount corresponding to Witnesses: their contraction'after welding and'holding HELEN NUFER, theg-w.-1 ;ati1s in such position bymeans of a ALFRED NUFER. 

